Low uptake of heat pumps hampering bid to cut emissions
Uptake of clean heat pumps to replace boilers has been less than half the expected levels under a flagship programme, a report has warned.
The UK Government needs to engage "every household" in the shift to clean heating, the National Audit Office (NAO) said, as it warned that low uptake of heat pumps was slowing progress on cutting emissions from homes.
It added that ministers should consider spelling out sooner what role hydrogen could play in driving the move away from fossil fuel heating.
Efforts to encourage people to install heat pumps have been slow because costs have remained high and public awareness is low, a report from the independent public spending watchdog said.
Uncertainty around how significant a role hydrogen could play in home heating is hampering investment and effective planning, the report said.
Heat pumps, a renewable technology which uses electricity to draw heat from the ground, air or water for heating buildings, are a key element of the bid to make homes greener.
The Government has ambitions for the installation of 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028, a rise from 55,000 in 2022, and up to 1.6 million a year by 2035. Ministers have said they would make a decision in 2026 on the role that hydrogen - which could potentially be put through pipes instead of gas - could play in shifting millions of homes from gas boilers.
Tackling pollution from home heating is one of the biggest decarbonisation challenges, with climate advisers estimating a price tag of £162 billion investment between 2020 and 2050.
But it is key to meeting the UK'S "net zero" - producing zero emissions overall - target by 2050, as heating homes accounted for 18 per cent of the country's greenhouse gases in 2021.
The report warned that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said assumptions about levels of consumer uptake of heat pumps were "optimistic", and it has achieved lower than expected uptake of heat pumps through its flagship "boiler upgrade scheme" grant.
Just 18,900 of the clean heating units were installed under the grant scheme from May 2022 to December 2023, less than half the up to 50,000 expected by that point.
Since the grant to help households install heat pumps was increased from £5,000 to £7,500 in September, the number being installed has risen, with uptake nearly 40 per cent higher in January this year compared to a year ago.
But the NAO warned more data was needed to see if the uplift was sustained, and warned there were two major stumbling blocks.
The first is cost they are still four times more expensive than a gas boiler, the report said. Although heat pumps are significantly more effipaul cient than boilers, electricity prices are much higher than gas. The second problem is low consumer awareness.
Meanwhile, trials on hydrogen have been delayed or abandoned in the face of opposition.